


Wouldn't Want Me To

by qwanderer



Series: Pardicer [9]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, Controlling Parent, Episode: s05e11 The Low Low Price Job, F/M, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Multi, Relationship Negotiation, ish, sort-of breakup?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 03:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9417191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: Eliot's desire for normalcy came and went, but this case was bringing it on strong. Making him homesick.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Stole one major conversation, a few snippets of dialog and a whole bundle of plot points from The Low Low Price Job. You know the drill.
> 
> Here be angst! Heed the tags.

_"We're not done."_

_"Oh, we're done, all right."_

_"You step through that door right now, son, and I ain't ever lettin' you back through it."_

* * *

Eliot knew how to run a damn business, okay? 

But technically this place belonged to Hardison, and Hardison seemed determined to change everything. 

Everything was different than it used to be, than how he'd learned it. 

It was funny, the pair of them seemed to think nothing scared Eliot, but this had him spinnin' round. The way pieces of him that he thought he'd lost forever kept croppin' back up again. 

Sometimes the more they got him hoping he could really change, he could really be a good man, get back to being in real relationships, the farther he felt from them. "Normal is what works for you" was one thing, but there was some part of Eliot that was still really attached to normal. The kind of normal that went with the small town life. The kind of family where Eliot was raised. 

And every time Hardison went and did something like this, the worse it got. 

"Hardison, you've gone too far this time," Eliot told him. 

"Hey, we're in Portland. Gotta do as the hippies do." 

Yeah, okay, but this was the last straw in a very big pile. "I have no problem going green, all right? I put in your tankless water heater and your low-flow faucet and all your solar-powered crap. But composting, dude? Seriously, it stinks in here." 

"That, my friend, is the sweet smell of sustainability. Now, let's see what's next. Oh, we got some recycling bins. You gotta put those in. There's a cardboard crusher. Very effecti..." 

She had this denim jacket on, a work-sturdy one, and she was beautiful in a distinctively farm-country way - Eliot immediately got the feeling that she got her hands dirty, that she worked with plants. 

That got him to look again. But what got him to walk over was how sad she looked. 

Tabatha told him all about her problems, and it was a story he'd heard many times before. She was in love with the small-town culture, the small-town vibe. And hers was in danger. 

Eliot felt the need to help, and he felt like he was on the edge of another shift in the winds of his life. It was disconcerting. 

* * *

Hardison didn't believe there was a job here. He didn't think there was a problem. Eliot suspected that Parker was hedging her bets until Nate and Sophie got here. But he'd understand if she came down on the "no" side. 

She didn't have the reasons to care about this like he did. 

Small-town life and small-town values were worth saving. They were. And Eliot knew that that separated him from Hardison and Parker. They liked the new. They liked the different. 

_Conventional wisdom ain't much good to them._

_An' that's them. That's good for them._

Hardison and his nana always had reason to distrust the way things always had been, the traditions in American culture. Parker never had much to miss. But Eliot _missed_ the life of his boyhood. He missed it fiercely. 

His hometown? It was a good town. It was a good community. It really was, in a lot of ways. Eliot knew there were good things and bad things and they went hand in hand. Everybody cared, and everybody asked after you, and everybody talked. Everybody knew Eliot's business. Everybody knew about Aimee, and everybody knew about the time before that with Gordon behind the gym. Everybody liked to tell him how Aimee was a nice girl and that was gonna be the way to be happy, the right way to go about things. 

He'd liked Aimee, maybe loved her, but. 

Eliot had always known the world was bigger than that. He'd read. He'd watched TV. He knew if he stayed there, if he married Aimee right out of school, his life would be stiflingly small. And the only way to get out and see more of it that he could figure was to enlist. 

So he did. 

There were good things and bad things about the larger world, too. About big cities and big corporations and everything being connected to everything else, instead of through people. 

There was so much to know, yes. So many different ways of living. And so many people whose ways of living pushed up against each other, and made them want to fight. Made them want to kill each other. 

After seeing too many different reasons to kill people, too many different ways of killing, he'd shut down. He'd stopped seeing people when he looked at faces. 

The only things he knew were his knives and his fists, for a long time. 

Then one day a man taught him how to use his knives for good. To give people something besides death. And he saw a person, he saw Toby in that face. 

Another day, a man taught him how to use his fists for good, to give people something besides pain. And he saw Nate Ford, instead of just a face. 

And along with that he met a man who needed his fists, who needed protection, and who let him do the protecting. And he saw Alec Hardison, instead of just a face. 

And he met a woman who needed his knife, who needed nourishing, and who (eventually) let him give her that. And he saw Parker, instead of just a face. 

The team had changed him. They'd brought him back to life. Alec and Parker, they'd made him someone new. And he couldn't ever repay them for that. They weren't asking him to. He accepted that, he accepted that they just wanted him to be happy, whatever way that ended up happening. 

Eliot's desire for normalcy came and went, but this case was bringing it on strong. Making him homesick. 

There was still something so appealing about the idea of marriage, about the idea of home an' kids and a little house with a lot o' land, some proper farmland, some animals. The idea of raisin' a family in the same kind of way that he'd been raised. 

They were never gonna want that. 

But it seemed like bad grace to turn around an' give the man they'd made him into to someone else. 

* * *

Parker knew something was up with him. She was clinging too hard to Alec. Eliot could hear the distinctive sounds of one of their little slap fights, hear him whining about it over the comms. Hardison could take it, though. Hardison had so much to give. 

They'd be okay. They'd always have each other. 

But they also both loved him, so of course Parker had prodded Hardison into investigating for her. 

Didn't help that Martin reminded Eliot so much of his dad, in the best moments. He'd mentioned the shop over comms. 

Eliot sorta knew the question was coming. Especially when Alec's eyes turned all open and sympathetic as he muted the surveillance feed. 

"Hey, man, that, uh, stuff about your pop owning the hardware shop, man, is that real, or is that just an alias riff?" 

Eliot... couldn't answer. Couldn't say anything at all. Couldn't even lie, not to Hardison. 

"Okay." Hardison turned away, giving Eliot the appearance of space. 

Damn, the man was good at that. 

Still, Eliot fought even to open his mouth, to move his lips. It was a problem Parker had sometimes, too, and it was always Hardison to draw them out, to just keep being there and open, waiting warmly to hear whatever words the other two managed to say. 

"It was more like a hole in the wall. Tools stacked up to the ceiling. There was method in his madness, though. He knew that place like the back of his hand." 

He spoke slow, one sentence at a time, choppy. He knew Alec wouldn't judge. 

"Did you two work it together?" 

"Yeah, he wanted me to run the damn joint. But I wanted to get out, change the world, _needed_ to get out of there. I joined the service when I was eighteen, and, well, that was it." 

Alec frowned at him. Like he knew. Like he suspected the answer. "When was the last time you were back?" 

The answer to that, well, that was even harder to say. 

"We had a fight the night before I left." 

He couldn't. He couldn't go farther, couldn't relive any more of that. Not right now. 

"So... this town... this town's a lot like that." 

He needed a sound other than his own voice. He prodded Hardison's keyboard until the audio came back up on Nate's grift. 

Alec let him run. 

* * *

"Come on, son, sit down with me. Have a drink." 

His dad set a beer in front of him. That'd never happened before. His dad didn't hold with drinking underage. 

"What is this?" 

"I still think I've got a chance of settin' you straight, is what this is," his dad said. "Just want you to take this serious." 

"I wasn't aware enlisting was a crooked thing to do," Eliot said sarcastically. 

"Ain't always," his dad allowed. "But for you? Nah, it ain't the right thing for you." 

"Why not, huh?" 

"You're a good boy, Eliot. The country's in your blood, an' you know it. You don't gotta take over the shop, either. It's not your only option. I know you like bein' a farm hand. Sal says you got the greenest thumb he's ever come across, you're like a plant whisperer. He ain't got no sons. You took him up on his offer, you could buy out his whole farm when he retires." 

"Dad, I've heard all this before." 

"I don't think you have, because your bags are still packed. But Eliot. This ain't you. All this shit you do. You're a good boy, a smart boy, when you stop an' think things through. You can't just go chasin' off after anythin' that strikes your fancy. You gotta stop and think." 

"I've _thought_ about this. You're not gonna change my mind." 

"I'm not lettin' you do this with your life. You chase those fancies of yours, you're gonna end up doin' things you wish you hadn't." 

"Oh, yeah, I can tell you really think a lot o' me, Dad!" 

His dad was apparently done listening, because he just kept talking right over Eliot, voice getting louder. 

"Out there? A lot more things to get wrapped up in, to chase. You don't wanna risk that. You get too wrapped up in things. They get ahold of you. That's why we gotta keep an eye out for you. That's what parents do." 

"I'm eighteen! I'm not your problem anymore! This is my chance! I'm not stayin' here in your bullshit little tiny town!" 

"Your chance? Your chance to ruin your life? To damn yourself? Because that's the danger of runnin' off half-cocked, you run into trouble. Run into somethin' that'll take you over, if you let it. And if you leave, sooner or later, one of 'em is gonna get hold of you and drag you _right down to hell_." 

Eliot's mouth snapped shut. He grit his teeth. Then he went for his bags. 

"We're not done," his dad snapped. 

"Oh, we're done, all right." Eliot opened the front door. 

"You step through that door right now, son, and I ain't ever lettin' you back through it." 

Eliot only paused for a moment before stepping through, and slamming it. 

* * *

Eliot was angry at himself, angry at the world, angry at the bureaucracy that they were fighting against tooth and nail, this job. But the only target he had in front of him was Bryan. 

"Bryan, you're a bully. You know how much I'd love to tear your arm off and feed it to you right now? But, you see, that would make me a bully too. You see my dilemma?" 

Bryan struck first. That made what Eliot did self-defense. 

"Bryan, I want you to listen to me, and I want you to try to understand." 

"I can't feel my arm." 

"I know. The only reason why I'm not throwing you into this soda machine is because Martin wouldn't want me to do it. You see, Martin is a good neighbor. You? You're not." 

Martin brought back to memory all the good Christian lessons his father had tried to teach him. Eliot wanted very much to let out some more of his anger in the form of violence. But even more than that, he didn't want to disappoint Martin. 

Violence had become part of him, integral to Eliot Spencer. It didn't have to be. He knew that now. 

But he still wasn't sure where that left him. 

* * *

The others kept the job going, even after Eliot's little stunt had gotten him fired from his undercover gig. 

They were on fire, he wasn't throwing off the team dynamic, that was good. He'd hate to do that. 

Hardison was good at bein' mean to people who deserved it. In creative ways. His twisted vitamin drink concoctions for the mark sounded... just... really awful. That was a really awful thing to do to someone, mess with their food. 

Couldn't have happened to a nicer gal, though. 

And Parker's Alice White was working well today, treading that line between memorable and surreal that she was getting so good at. She sounded like she felt really sick. Really disturbed. And slightly loopy. 

Anyway, soon enough, the mark was primed. 

Parker started the pool on when she would crack. Eliot knew better than to bet against her. 

Sure enough, soon she was rakin' up everyone else's cash. 

Parker knew people, knew 'em better'n even Sophie did now, in her own way, knew this situation and had calculated it or she wouldn't have put money down on it. Parker loved her cash. 

And so, when the job was over, when they headed home to the pub, Eliot didn't even try to fight Parker as she dragged him up to the third floor, pulled him into her room, and beckoned Hardison to follow. 

She sat down crosslegged on the bed, then stared at him until he sat, too. Hardison slid into the space behind her, looking as if he thought he might need shielding from whatever this was going to bring. But she grabbed his arm as he slid it around her, clearly needing the contact. 

Fuck. 

"What's wrong?" Parker asked him bluntly. 

Hardison was doing his patient thing again, and for the moment Parker seemed to be taking her cues from him, because she was still, but not staring. 

"I'm afraid I'll end up hurtin' you," Eliot managed. "That I'll end up treatin' you less well than you deserve. Like I did Aimee." 

Hardison closed his eyes, sighing, before he responded. "You don't owe us anything, man," he said. "This is as much about what you want as it is about what we want. You know that, right?" 

"I know," Eliot said, avoiding their eyes. 

"So what do you want?" Parker asked. 

He liked that she was blunt. Didn't mean there was a simple answer, though. 

Eliot scowled. "That's the thing, the thing that happened with Aimee. I didn't know what I wanted, but I wanted to find out. An' I ended up wishing I'd found a way to stay with her. Instead of goin' and looking for other answers." 

Parker and Hardison shared a glance. 

"You know you don't have to choose between us and someone else, right?" Hardison asked. "We don't need you to be exclusive. As long as everything's aboveboard and everyone knows what's happening." 

Eliot... hadn't, not really. Didn't know the rules. Maybe should've learned them. But.... 

"It's not that simple," he said. "I can't start somethin' like I'm thinking of while I'm still sleepin' with someone else." He shook his head. "Why are we even talking about this, I'm happy with you two. I'm happy the way things are." 

"You always say that," Parker commented. "I'm starting to think you don't actually know what 'happy' means." 

Huh. 

"I don't wanna lose... this...." he told them. "But maybe we could...." 

Alec was wrapped tight around Parker, and Parker clutched Alec's hand, rubbing a thumb against his fingers, but neither of them interrupted him while he thought this out, tried to find the right words. 

"You know how you two, you've loved each other an' known it for a long time, since before...." 

"Since before pie," Parker provided. She measured things in food, whenever they were too important for money. 

"Since before pie," Eliot agreed. "An' you worked, even when you weren't dating. You work, even though there's no sex." 

"Yeah," Hardison said, nodding. "It's all good." 

"Maybe we could have... something like that? We'll be... together, okay, we'll be...." 

_Friends_ would be a not-nice word to use right now, he knew that much. 

"I'll always love you. Both of you. That ain't ever changin'. And I'm part of this crew for the long haul." 

"But you need to take a step back," Alec guessed. "To see if you'd be happier somewhere else." 

It was pretty bad, the hurt in Hardison's eyes. But he also looked like he really did understand. 

He caught Parker's eyes, and they had another wordless conversation. 

"You can go," she told him. "If you need to. But remember that you can always come back." 

* * *

Parker and Hardison seemed happy enough to be wrapped up in each other. 

He knew that leaving them to their own devices in a candy store was dangerous, especially if they were less okay than they were pretending to be about all this. But there was something about all this that had got him tight and wouldn't let him go until it had dragged him to whatever was next in his life. 

Eliot watched them go, and asked Tabatha out on a date. 

* * *

He'd missed his dad so much this week, it had hurt. 

He needed to figure this out, needed to try. So he brought a six-pack, something he thought his dad would appreciate, and strode to the door. 

What was this? What did he want from his dad? Eliot had barely crawled out of decades of hell, and the darkness was still clinging to him, he could feel it on his skin, standing here. The parts of him that had come from deeds that his father would never even begin to understand, let alone forgive. 

What could Eliot say? What could he do to prove that he'd left that behind? 

Prove that he was ready to come back.... 

Did he really want normal so bad? Did he really want this life so bad? Or was it to trot out and show his father? 

Was that why he was doing all this, so he could come back to his dad and say, "Here, I did like you wanted, I've got a nice girl and I'm doin' things your way"? 

That wasn't a good reason. 

That wasn't a good enough reason to leave his friends. His family. The two people he loved more than anythin' else in the world. 

He could change, he knew that now, but there had to be a line. There had to be a place where he could stand, where he could plant his feet and say. "This is who I am. This is who I want to be. This is who I am because of me, and not because anyone else would've wanted it." 

_I don't know who I am yet an' if I go in there I'll come face up against everythin' that made me run in the first place. Everythin' that made me doubt._

This door, this was a door that was better left shut. 

He put the beer down on the stoop. He left it there. 

"Because Martin wouldn't want me to." 

"Because my dad wouldn't want me to." 

He left those there. And he walked away, back to his truck. 

And he thought about his date with Tabatha, about what he envisioned it becoming. 

_This life, it's what my dad would want for me. Or at least, what he would've, all those years ago._

_That's not what this should be about._

_Do I want this for me?_

_I don't know._

_I don't know._

What he did know was this: 

There'd always be a place for him with Parker and Hardison. That was a door he could step through and know that it wouldn't be the last time. 

* * *

Eliot went on the date. 


End file.
